Afteryears
by Moonlight Music Mistress
Summary: He finds out the hard way that, after three years, she's still alive. NejiTen.


**Afteryears**

**Neji x Tenten**

This idea has literally been brewing for years! I'm happy to finally put it into action. Please read and review – thank you so much!

_Please note that this story is AU in the sense that there is no Akatsuki threat, no Orochimaru, no canon villains, no meanie Sasuke, etc._

Featuring BAMF!Tenten.

Anyway, this story. This story, this story, this story. I have no idea what I'm about to write. I planned the basic plotline of "he-goes-to-seek-revenge-after-three-years-but-finds-she's-alive" and I know that Tenten is what is written above. That's all I know. I will try to make it into somewhat of a story. Let's see what happens!

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><p>Never in his life had his brain been so filled with external noises.<p>

The sounds had various sources, ranging in literal volumes, but even the slightest flap of a falcon's wing seemed to echo a million decibels in his eardrums. So many different sounds, yet none were pleasing to his ears. It wasn't as if he could expect to hear sweet bells ringing or angels crooning, though; he was in what was very probably the most dangerous place one could possibly hope to set foot. The chance of him making it out alive, let alone unscathed, was unfathomable. And those awful noises – those taunting, moaning, desperate noises – were another reminder of that.

If he looked to his left, he could see trees leaning ferociously, bending back and forth as an effect of the hurricane winds. Their jerks were so fierce that he was surprised they hadn't been uprooted yet; they dared to fall down completely but never quite did so, like a stubborn baby tooth hanging by one string. The sound the trees made was a hideous one. The falling of their branches and the crisp groan of their leaves left his ears begging for quiet. He was in astonishment that trees could make so much noise, but he supposed it made sense. After all, on stormy nights back at his home, he'd hear the high-pitched sways of tree leaves crackling and the fall of the occasional branch. The thousands of trees in the area were hardly comparable to the few sakura trees back at his manor, though. Additionally, the darkness and the sinister aura of the place had a psychological affect on him – the severity of the situation was making everything seem so much louder, more painful, more dark.

To his right, there were animals of the most brutal kind – tigers, lions, everything associated with horror and violence. Each one was chain-bound by two of its four legs to a large steel-iron fence, preventing it from attacking the young man. He had to wonder why they weren't being let free – in the end, it wouldn't really matter if they'd attacked and killed him. What he was about to face would certainly do him in, anyway. A tiny part of him even wished that they would be able to roam untamed - they truly were pitiable creatures. They had neither the desire nor the choice to be tied up in such a terrible fashion. The only thing they knew was charging and murdering – it was their way of life and their animal instincts. The man knew that they were faultless, but they were nonetheless intimidating. Lions were roaring at him, tigers were letting out their vicious bellows at him. Not to mention, Heaven knew what other predatory animals were also tied mercilessly to that horrible fence, wailing from the desire to be free and kill but being restricted from doing so. These sounds, too, repeated in his head at an uncomfortably loud level.

That wasn't all. Up above and all around him, omnipresent storms and harsh winds were pounding away, slapping the bumpy terrain. Lightning struck some random part of the awful place at frequent intervals, followed by quick, striking bursts of thunder. The wind was enough to keep him alert, if anything – one step out of place, and he'd be falling over, knocked around like a plaything by that merciless air. This was a fact made even truer because of the bumpiness of the ground he was walking on. It was all the instability and challenge of climbing a mountain.

He didn't, however, look left at the trees, or right at the animals, or up at the storm, or around at the wind, or down at the ground. He just looked straight ahead, towards his destination.

Further on, straight ahead of him, there was a cave. It was about one-hundred meters away, but it seemed to him like it was years and years ahead of him, far beyond his reach. Braving the unbearable noises and keeping on, he slowly itched closer, inch by inch, towards his target. It was a large cave that, as made evident by the man peering around, had no visible end. The infinite cave was composed of boulder, and he had learned from past experience that the boulder was impenetrable. As he stepped closer, he could make out the details on the outside of the boulders – scratches, failed jutsus, stains of blood. His own blood suddenly felt cold, and not because of the icy winds, but because of the fact that he anticipated his own blood to join in as a part of the boulder's decoration. Fifty meters away, and he could see the interior of the cave, which showed even more signs of danger than the outside.

Forty meters away. God, it took a long time to get there. Those rocks, and that wind, were extremely deterring. In fact, the only thing keeping him alive, the only thing keeping his mentality somewhat sane, was the fact that he'd never been so determined in his life to achieve anything. His muscles had never been so sore due to the harsh landscapes, and his senses had never been so obscured from his exhaustion and anxiety. Even so, he persevered.

_What am I doing?_ the rational part of his brain asked him as he shifted through the jagged rocks leading up to the cave's pathway. _There's really no sense in this; nothing good can come out of it._

_Oh, you _know_ what you're doing,_ the more emotional part sneered. _You know _exactly_ what you're doing. You know exactly _why_ you're doing it. And you aren't ever going to forgive yourself if you _don't_ do it._

Although the emotional part of his head was far smaller than the rational part, considering the analytical and logical nature of the man in question, his soul was this time more inclined to agree with his feelings as opposed to the more cautious, less ardent side of him. He was a man with a mission.

_I'm just going to die as a result. It'll all be in vain,_ rationality argued.

_No. He killed your friend, Neji. He killed her, and you'll never get over it,_ emotions countered.

Thirty feet away, and he was really starting to get frightened. Courage diminishing, boldness fading, perspiring and shaking, he tried to summon it all back with little success.

"I'm doing this," he muttered, figuring that speaking encouragement aloud would stir him. "They killed her. She had to jump in, had to be all impulsive, had to try and save the day…and look where it got her. And I don't care if it gets me in the same place. Too many people have tried to kill this guy, and I'm going to do it, die trying or not."

His words seemed to work, as he heightened considerably. Twenty feet away. Ten…

There was no turning back. At last, his feet were at the entrance of the cave.

He inhaled a sharp breath and screamed, "Show yourself!"

The reply he received was the blowing of the air outside the cave.

"Don't be a coward! I've trained for three years to face you! Get back here so I can get my revenge – you killed her! _You killed her_!"

There was still no answer. Neji began to get extremely fired up. Without a plan of any kind, he marched into the cave. In a surge of post-traumatic stress, a surge of déjà vu, he had to fight back tears as he remembered what had happened the last time he'd come here.

It had been three years prior, when Neji and his teammates, Tenten and Lee, were sixteen years old. Rumors at the time were circulating about many disappearances by people who'd dared enter the cave – people who'd been hoping to do justice but instead ended up martyrs. Indeed, the cave was home to a powerful man – he'd lived there and trained in its vast depths, hoping to someday become a powerful, tyrannical shinobi capable of controlling the ninja world. The story was that four shinobi and four kunoichi had completed a vigorous mission in Konoha, where the cave was located, and sought rest in it for a few days after their troubles. Unbeknownst to them, of course, it was the residence of an evil ninja. The unfortunate souls became his first of many targets. Because one of the ninja was lucky enough to send a letter away in the harsh wind before he died, trusting it to reach the right eyes, the murder of those eight Mist Village ninja was soon spread like wildfire across the five villages. People were naturally frightened of a powerful man dwelling in a cave. Many mysteries, of course, were speculated – how did someone live in a cave? who was he? what was he planning to do? – but none were ever solved through research. Shinobi after shinobi had chivalrously entered the cave, in attempts of defeating the man who lived there. But nobody ever made it out alive.

Tsunade, with what was admittedly overestimated faith in the weapons mistress, had known of a weapon that Tenten had – a very powerful sword given to her by her father. The sword was extremely powerful and fatal with only one blow, but was a sword that was rather bipolar in nature. It could only do significant harm to someone who was as pure and good as a saint, or truly, genuinely, deeply evil. Lady Tsunade decided that this would be the weapon that would, once and for all, do in the evil man; therefore, she called upon Tenten, with the support of her teammates and sensei, to embark on the quest.

Of course, Tenten's team all stormed at Tsunade, asking her why they couldn't simply give the sword to a higher-ranking ninja who was more capable of destroying the man. Tenten then had to explain the drawback of the sword – much like Kisame's Samehada, it could only be wielded by certain people. If anyone other than Tenten's own kin touched the sword, they'd collapse unconscious for a period of time. Seeing as Tenten had no living relatives, she knew that she had to be the one to do it.

The rest was simple. Tenten hadn't managed to kill the man, the rest of the team had fled, and Tenten's body was only left in the cave due to her one request.

"_I want my body to be here, where I fought my last fight."_

Neji was still battling those tears as he looked about the cave, searching around and expecting to find dead bodies from the man's many victims. He was mildly surprised that there weren't any, but he figured that someone as evil as him could very well have fed the bodies to the animals outside, or thrown them in the way back of the cave where they wouldn't be a nuisance. Looking around more, going farther towards the other side of the cave, growing more impatient by the second, he yelled urgently, "You might as well come out now – it'll only make your death go by quicker!"

Adrenaline racing, Neji heard a moan from the inside of the cave. That was it. He was finally coming for him. Neji calculated quickly and, for the first time thus far, activated his Byakugan – he'd needed to preserve his doujutsu for this moment. When he looked around and searched across the cave, he believed his eyes to have betrayed him. It had to be an illusion of some sort.

Why else would Tenten be slowly rising from the cave ground, moaning, her hand atop the sheath of the sword, and a pile of bones lying a few feet away from her?

Neji staggered his breathing and couldn't hide a gasp of shock. Seeing as how his Byakugan could not see through genjutsu, he studied Tenten's chakra flow and what was undoubtedly the bones – the remains of the evil man after he'd decomposed. Had he really died? How was Tenten alive? He decided, both after thinking about the ordeal and by intuition, that this was definitely not a genjutsu.

"Tenten!" he screamed, running over towards her. "What the-"

"Neji…well, hey..." she slurred, stretching and rubbing her eyes. "Haven't seen you in a – _Neji_!"

Like a light switch, Tenten transformed from weary and delusional to enthusiastic. She pulled herself quickly up and ran over towards her teammate, embracing him. "What are you doing here?"

Neji couldn't find words. Everything, every emotion ever felt by every human being, was racing through him as he tightly squeezed Tenten. Everything was so surreal, and Neji even pinched his skin a couple of times to make sure that all of these emotions were justifiable. On one hand, he was overjoyed by the fact that Tenten was actually alive. Although nobody else in the village had observed this, Neji was in constant mourning over what he thought was the loss of his teammate and friend. He was sad, as well – three years of mourning, wasted. Anger, too, overtook him. Wouldn't anyone feel extreme bitterness after coming so far to realize their efforts were in vain?

It wasn't in vain, though, he realized. After that whole sojourn, he now knew one thing: Tenten was alive. And he had reason to believe that she was the one who killed the wicked man.

He deactivated his Byakugan. She looked frail, as he expected. She'd been there for three years, it seemed – he would have known if she'd left the cave and returned. She appeared to be emaciated all over – much less curvy than she'd been before. Her extreme skinniness unsettled Neji. There were also a few new scars and cuts, some very large indeed, on places he'd never seen scars. He guessed that they were from the battle that led to her "demise." Her long-sleeved white fighting top was ripped off from the ribs down and tied around her left calf, which he assumed hosted another of the wounds from that fateful battle, and her pants had morphed into shorts. He wondered how she hadn't died of hypothermia. Her signature twin buns were pulled out, and her hair was down to her waist – longer than it had ever been.

There were so many questions. How was he supposed to think, though, when everything was rushing to him all at once? Before he allowed his emotions to consume him any further, he dazedly told her to sit down.

He, really, would have loved nothing more than to hold her, to hug her, to tell her about how miserable he'd been without her. He wanted to give her some food, wrap her up in his clothing, and carry her home and place her in her bed. He cared, because he was a teammate. He was a friend. He cared. He wanted to help. Even so, he had to know what happened. He couldn't let himself get carried away with his heart's desires – there were so many things that needed to be known.

"Sit," he told her. She did. He then sat across from her in the heart of the freezing cave.

"Tenten, I'm going to ask you a lot of questions," he said, handling her with unnecessary concern.

"Neji, wait! I want to know how you are, how everyone's doi-"

"Tenten."

The finality in his tone was unmistakable, and Tenten caught onto this. She reluctantly sighed and said, "Shoot."

"Alright. First," Neji said, "did you kill him?"

"Of course I did!" she replied, almost impatiently. "You thought I didn't?"

"Well, you-"

"Neji, let me tell you something. I did. And I had to give up a lot to do it."

He paused briefly. "What do you mean?"

Panic seared through him. What could she have done? Did she have to kill someone else that inevitably would come along? Did she serve his needs, or harm herself in any way, just to fulfill this goal?

"I mean…Aku...that's his name, by the way...the guy…the one I killed…Neji, he…"

Obviously, Tenten was struggling to say something that was dying to come out, but wouldn't. She seemed to be buying time before she was forced to answer the question. It seemed to Neji as though she wanted desperately to tell him, but couldn't find the words to say it. Maybe it was something almost forbidden – a secret that would make Neji cringe. What Tenten actually said, however, was something he was completely unprepared for.

"He wanted…he wanted me to…well, actually, he kind of wanted _me_…"

Neji had a feeling where this was going, and he hated it. Something, a foreign feeling of jealousy and possessive greediness, overtook him. Did she really mean what he thought she meant?

"No, no," Tenten hurriedly shrieked, appearing to see what he was feeling. "That's not it! I mean, nothing _happened_, but…well, a _little_ happened. We ended up kissing, and just a little more – only a little, Neji, really!" she added, seeing his disgusted look. "You think I wanted to? He was filthy and miserable. But I did what I needed to do, and…"

Suddenly, Neji wished that the man were still alive, just so he could do the honors of killing him over again. Unsure of why, he felt that raging possessiveness once again. He told himself that the feeling was a strictly platonic one, and he believed that he was right. Tenten, his friend, his teammate since they were young – the thought of her growing up, doing something of that magnitude, was more than a little disturbing to him.

"…and then, it happened once during one of those…encounters. He was in a state of weakness at the time, lust and all. I grabbed my sword from behind and stabbed him in the back. It was simple. Of course, I hated every intimate moment that I had to spend with him, but, you know, as a kunoichi, I…"

Neji did not want to hear any of this anymore. He waved a dismissive hand and had a passionate look of hate in his eyes. Noticing Tenten's curiosity at this look, he resumed his questionnaire. His next question was going to be how she managed to kill him, but this she had already covered.

"When did it happen, and how did you survive in here so long?"

"It's been…what, two years now or so since the mission? Three?"

"Three," Neji informed her.

"Three. God, I'm nineteen." Tenten paused to look at the ceiling of the cave for a moment, heaved a sigh, and continued, "Well, you figure that the intimacy with the guy went on for about a year, and…"

"A _year_?"

"Neji, Neji. God. You thought it was a one-time thing? I managed to avoid doing too much with him during that year, which was a miracle in itself…I had to earn lots of his trust. That was a long year."

He was met with the sudden urge to run over to the dead bones of the evil man, Aku, and stab them again with Tenten's sword.

Tenten continued. "Anyway, so I've been living here alone for two years? The year I was there, Aku fed me. He did like me, so he kept me alive. The cave was packed with food. I had to ration it out to make room for the time I'd be staying here, but Aku obviously had a lot of it if he was planning on staying here to become that strong, eh?"

Neji nodded, and Tenten resumed speaking once again. "And then, for warmth, it was easy. I just went deeper into the depths of the cave. I used some of my clothing as blankets, and even took some of his clothes as blankets. And, before you ask, Aku himself survived all those years due to a bunch of hostages he held in the cave. It's a big cave, in case you couldn't tell, Neji. Before he died, there were a bunch of men in here, running back and forth with food and everything else he needed. He fed them just enough to keep them alive, in exchange for them keeping _him_ alive."

"Seriously?"

Tenten nodded. "And how am I still here, after two years of being alone? Well, after I killed him, I ran back towards the end of the cave to find the little servants. I told them what happened and told them to run free, and to take as much food as they wanted, and then I'd return to Konoha on my own. Great guys, they were. They were so scared of the dude, poor things. They went out and bought me all these delicious foods, picked up a few new weapons after I'd told them I was a weapons mistress...then they fled."

"Why didn't you flee after you killed him, Tenten? You could have died in here! Two years in here, alone?"

"I don't know why I didn't leave. I guess I wasn't ready to. At first, after I killed him, I was eager to get up and leave. But then I decided against it."

"Tenten, that's unjustifiable. It's been two years! What could your reasons possibly have been for staying here for two years? What on Earth have you been doing?"

"Training, of course. Stuff. I don't know. I guess, for awhile, I just…liked the peace and quiet. I was going to return soon, but then, well, you came."

"Two years of peace and quiet? Tenten, that's so much time without anyone. That can't be good for you...?"

"After essentially slaving yourself for a year, trust me. You'd want some alone time, too. Thinking things over, you know. I needed to stay here – if I returned to Konoha, everyone would be pestering me. I just needed time alone. …That sounds really, really unreasonable, doesn't it?"

"It does, Tenten. I can't believe you'd do that."

What stung at him was the fact that she didn't return to see anyone, to see him, after she killed him. Never once did she want to see him? After he missed her like crazy? It was with difficulty that he fought the impulse to scream at her. Instead, he kept himself composed as he kept asking questions.

"What happened to all the dead bodies?"

"I buried 'em. They're all under the ground outside, in different places. I couldn't leave them there. They deserved a burial place after what they'd gone through. Aku actually planned on just letting them rot in the back of the cave…incredible how someone could do that without their conscience interrupting. I told him to let me bury them, make more room for the two of us. I think he actually expected me to live there with him. It's remarkable, though. A man in lust really has no brain."

It was as if Tenten wanted to mess with his psyche. The emotions she was making him experience for the first time, this possessiveness, this attachment to her that he'd never felt before…the feeling of unworthiness when she'd told him her reasons for staying the past two years…Once again, pushing aside his emotions, he resumed asking the important questions.

"How are those trees standing, and why are those animals out there?"

"Oh. The trees, I don't know. I guess it's because of how protected they are by the rocks and stuff out there…you felt how rocky it is out there. The soil's pretty far below. The rocks are all just at the surface, and there's so much sand and stuff underneath the rocks that the trees aren't falling. Another miracle, I think."

"And the animals? Why are they here, and how are they surviving?"

"Those animals are chained to the fence. When an intruder comes, they start roaring and howling and all that, and that way Aku knows to be prepared for an ambush."

"How are they alive?"

"I've been feeding them with some of the leftover food that Aku had. I swear, the guy must have either stolen storeloads of food, or else just worked really hard to buy it all. I'm still trying to decide what to do with those guys. I can't let them free – they'll go crazy and attack the village. So I've kept them alive until I've figured it out."

"One more question, Tenten."

"Sure."

"Didn't anyone else come here to try to kill Aku? They didn't know he was dead, did they? Wouldn't they have found him dead, found you alive, and come to inform people that he was dead and that a living girl was there?"

"They really kind of stopped coming. One or two men came after I died" – here Tenten used her fingers to represent air quotes – "but they were both killed by Aku. I tried to stop him from killing them, but he wouldn't listen. I offered him so much. More than you know. He didn't listen. He killed them."

She began to get teary-eyed. "My biggest regret is not having the strength to save those people. After that, people just kind of stopped coming. They figured, well, he's been living in that cave this whole time, right? Years and years without attacking any villages. They probably just decided to live their lives until the day when Aku _would_ strike. They didn't see the point in basically going out to get themselves killed. They'd rather wait until he came to them. Doesn't make much sense to me. You'd think someone would have had the guts to come along and try to finish him."

Her words reached his ears, but barely. The thing that was stuck on his mind the most was her pleas to Aku to not kill the few people that had come…what had she offered? He had a feeling that she'd offered a few things that one would only offer a man in the most desperate of situations. And those awful feelings came rushing back to him, those feelings of envious protectiveness…

He'd had it. He'd composed himself this whole time, trying to hush his heart and listen to his head, keep asking questions. When his heart was beckoning for him to do something else, instead of sit and ask questions that were probably irrelevant, he had ignored the temptation. No more of that, though. There were so many things he'd wanted to do, wanted to say, since he'd arrived at the cave and found her alive. Now that Tenten had unknowingly and effortlessly made him experience that possessiveness, that protectiveness, that uselessness…all those negative and powerful emotions were dying to be let out in the form of positive ones. Happiness, care, love.

So he kissed her.

He grabbed the sides of her face and crashed her lips onto his. He rubbed his hands along her back and closed his eyes, allowing the negative emotions to transform. Neji had originally anticipated an assassination task, but what he'd encountered instead – the passionate tongue-lock between him and his living teammate – was far from a bad experience.

Tenten pulled apart after a few minutes of responding to Neji's fervent energy.

"Neji, you-"

"We're leaving. Let's go. We're bringing you back to Konoha. We're telling Tsunade-sama about these animals, and about this whole situation. Don't worry – they'll be let free. And you better not worry about those couple of men that died…you did what you could." It pained him to think of her offers again, but his heart reminded him that he should console her.

Tenten was blushing and stammering in a blissfully confused manner. "Neji, you kissed-"

Neji warmly stared into her brown eyes. "Think of it as an expression of the feelings I've been harboring since you 'died.'"

Tenten beamed and hugged him with force, finally nodding her head in agreement to the prospect of going home. "It's time I see Konoha again."

She picked up her sword. Together, they stepped outside of the cave and braved the rocky ground, heading back home.

"Oh, one more question, Tenten."

She looked up at him and playfully rolled her eyes. "Go on."

"You definitely seemed dead to me, that time on the mission three years ago. What woke you up?"

Knowingly smirking, Tenten answered, "He did deliver a pretty bad blow to me, and I did think I was going to die there. But I guess my will wouldn't let me. There were a few people I couldn't bear to be separated from. A few people I hadn't completely told everything to."

Neji had a glazed look on his face. "Hm?"

"A few people I hadn't confessed everything to. I hadn't told Lee how much I appreciated him, and Gai. A few other people, too. Like you. There are a lot of things I've felt about you that I haven't had the chance to say, and I knew I couldn't say them if I died. So, ultimately, thanks for keeping me alive." She winked at him.

Smiling, Neji said. "Let's hear what you had to say, then."

The spilling of her heart commenced then and there. He'd spilled his in the kiss, and now it was her turn. The journey back to Konoha was far less painful than the journey there.

Neji, from then on, acknowledged that emotions were very nice things to give in to.

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><p>Asdfghjkl! I finished it! Haha, looking back, I realize that I have no idea what I just wrote. But that's okay.<p>

Sorry for the overly fluffy ending. You should probably know by now that I'm a freak for fluffy endings for the most part, no matter how emo or angsty or otherwise unfluffy the story is.

Review, por favor! Gracias!


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